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China’s expanding role in Afghanistan
China has certainly augmented its presence in Afghanistan but with no apparent intention or haste to replace the US.
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Security first: A Taliban fighter stands guard as people gather at the venue for a flag hoisting ceremony of the Taliban flag on the Wazir Akbar Khan hill in Kabul on March 31, 2022. (AFP/Ahmad Sahel Arman)
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s China going to play the role of big brother in Afghanistan? The answer to this question is partly, yes. China is certainly emerging as the most influential player in the Afghanistan imbroglio but it will never replicate the United States as the “ringmaster”.
On Aug. 15 last year, when US forces officially withdrew from Afghanistan and handed over the reins of this war-torn country to the Taliban, it appeared that the Biden administration had decided to ostensibly abandon the Central Asian region as a low strategic interest territory.
For the last few years, the Americans’ presence in this territory has been withering away; virtually non-existent in Iran or the adjoining Central Asian states that have closer ties with Moscow and an increasingly clotted relationship with Pakistan.
There is a feeling that US President Joe Biden is implementing a complete disengagement strategy in the region because of other more “glamorous” issues like the simmering Ukraine crisis and the escalating tensions across the Taiwan Strait that have better prospects to stimulate his personal approval ratings and expand the Democrats’ vote bank in the forthcoming mid-term polls in November.
At the same time, Afghanistan watchers and analysts are predicting that Beijing will eventually fill this vacuum created by the Americans’ departure and will quickly replace the US completely.
But this is not exactly what has happened so far. China has certainly augmented its presence in Afghanistan but with no apparent intention or haste to replace the US.
However, al-Qaeda leader Zawahiri’s death in the drone attack has confirmed one thing that contrary to earlier perception about the Americans’ shrinking interest in Afghanistan, the White House’s umbilical cord with the region is still very much intact and the Americans are not ready to leave the region “unattended” that has the potential to “slip” into the folds of Chinese influence.
